


After the Inferno

by borutosdad



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Freeform, Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 08:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borutosdad/pseuds/borutosdad
Summary: PROMARE SPOILERSLio has a hard time dealing with the disappearance of the Promare.





	After the Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> i saw promare again today and i had to get this out of my system, i haven't proofread so sorry for any mistakes T___T
> 
> this does contain spoilers so proceed with caution if you haven't watched the movie yet!

It’s quiet now. The silence is almost worse than the incessant voices telling him to burn hotter, burn more, burn brighter. Lio doesn’t know how to exist without the voices; how does one deal with their own thoughts in such deafening silence? Galo is sleeping next to him, snoring more softly than Lio expected, but that is little comfort to him. He can still feel the heat, the living force of the Promare inside him, though they have all been transported back to their own universe. It’s like a phantom limb, the pain real despite the absence of an arm or leg. He’d been listening to their cries for as long as he’d been alive. Now there is a gaping hole inside him that he doesn’t know how to fill again. He doesn’t know if it  _ can _ ever be filled. He looks to Galo’s face, peaceful in sleep: a stark contrast to his usual energetic personality. 

Would Galo understand, if he told him about these feelings? About this emptiness inside him? Certainly not. He’d spent most of his life  _ fighting _ fires not being utterly consumed by one. Lio’s soul doesn’t know how to be extinguished. 

These thoughts were better left for another time, Lio knows, but he can’t stop them once they enter his mind. They consume him much like the fire once did. But unlike the fire, he is being damaged by them. Galo shifts in his sleep and flips over so his back is now to Lio. How he can sleep so soundly after the day they’ve had, Lio cannot guess. Perhaps this is just how he is. Or perhaps his body is so exhausted that he couldn’t help but fall asleep. 

Lio wishes desperately he had that luxury. The luxury of sleeping soundly, knowing you had saved the world. The luxury of knowing your life would mostly be the same in the morning. The same job, same friends, same sense of self. Yes, he is glad the world and the Promare are safe. Of course he is. But it  _ aches _ . The burnish were — are — his brethren. They aren’t people he would abandon just because the label effectively doesn’t exist any longer. But would everyone feel that way? Or would they want to return to normal lives, if they had them before, start over if they hadn’t? Would they abandon him, who risked his life to rescue them all from Foresight’s experiments?

He didn’t have to think about this before. All he knew was  _ burn, burn, burn _ . Burning was easy, effortless. Burning was power. Burning was terrifying and exhilarating. Burning got a lot of people killed.

And now burning is nothing. Commonplace. A fire in the hearth, a grill, a candle. He can no longer feel that energy. He is tired.

Lio looks to Galo again, tracing the muscles on his back with his eyes. He tries to name them as he goes. Anything to fill up the silence in his head.

_ Trapezius, deltoid, scapula, rhomboids….  _ He only realizes he’s crying when he can no longer see Galo’s back through his blurry vision. He presses the palms of his hands to his eyes and takes a shaky breath. It’s silly to be upset, he knows. They saved the world today. They are literal heroes. But he still feels hollow.

The bed shifts again and Galo is back to facing him. His wrists are gently pulled from his eyes and he blinks until his no-longer-sleeping companion comes into focus. 

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Lio asks. He hurriedly wipes the tears from his cheeks.

Galo says nothing, simply gives him a stern look. Then, still saying nothing, his arms wrap around Lio. His embrace is warm. It reminds Lio of before, when Galo had returned those borrowed flames of his. 

Lio relaxes against Galo’s body and lets himself cry. He grabs Galo’s shoulders and buries his face into his chest. It’s hard to breathe now, but Lio doesn’t much care. He lets it all out. All of his insecurities and fears. All that emptiness he’s feeling. He screams it all into the still air around them. When he is spent, he remains in Galo’s arms. Galo is rubbing a hand gently along his hair and then it moves to rub circles into his back. He stays quiet.

Eventually, the repetitive motion of Galo’s hands lull Lio to sleep. Finally,  _ finally _ asleep. Lio dreams of warmth, he dreams of his fellow burnish, but mostly he dreams of Galo. The flames may be gone, but there is plenty to fill his soul. 

And perhaps, one day, he will learn how to burn without them.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! you can also find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/borutosdads)!


End file.
